For the children of the future
by ThisCat
Summary: Some time into the future, basic human nature hasn't changed, so Tony and Pepper decide to take the fate of the world in their own hands. Fluffy, but serious themes. Rated T just in case.


**I know I have an unfinished story I need to work on, but this was stuck in my brain and wanted out, inspired by the story "Pale Queen" by Icarus_Chained on Ao3 (Great author). Indistinct future, small spoilers for large parts of the marvel cinematic universe. Surprisingly fluffy concidering the themes. Enjoy.**

* * *

Year 0

He just looked at her. For a long time. They sat on opposite sides of the table in an empty, interior-magazine living room, her suggestion lingering in the air, and he looked at her. He did not look disbelieving, or even mocking. He did not look as if he thought her suggestion was ridiculous. He did not look as though he thought she was insane. He looked at her, and he considered.

She waited. She sat with her hands together and her elbows on the table, and she looked back at him, and she waited. She understood that he needed to think. She knew it was a lot to take in. she was completely aware that what she had suggested was utterly unheard of. She knew she had to wait for his answer, and she knew without hearing it what it would be.

They sat like this on each side of a table belonging to them, in a living room in a house with both of their signatures on the contract and only the thin metal bands on their fingers proved they were married. Only these tiny things made their daily lives different from co-habitation, and they treasured them. His with the name Pepper Potts engraved on the inside, hers with the name Tony Stark. Neither had changed their names on marriage, but this was mostly because Pepper Stark sounded stupid and Tony Potts was just ridiculous. Also they would have had to change the name of the company and that seemed like such a hassle. And now Pepper and Tony, happily married for years, sat on opposite sides of a table and watched each other. Her suggestion mixed with his consideration in the air above them and they were quiet.

"So," he finally said, breaking the silence, "we instruct JARVIS to make sure we don't screw up, and then we take over the world? Like the villains in Saturday morning cartoons?"

"That's what I said."

"We'll make enemies."

"Not if we do it right."

"It'll be very difficult."

"But you don't think it'll be impossible?"

"Baby," he looked down and stroked his ring, exhaled slowly, "baby, if that's what you want, then yes, I'll give you the world."

"That's all I want."

And he looked back at her and smiled, and she smiled back, and they took each other's hands over the table for support, because they both understood that this was the beginning of the most dangerous, difficult and possibly deranged thing either of them would ever do, but they had each other, so everything was going to be all right.

* * *

Year -2

No one had thought it possible. No one had ever imagined that the small, insane country could ever be an actual threat. When the paper wrote that they had declared war on the world's largest superpower there were just as many people laughing as there was who were scared. No one had ever believed that such a ridiculous country could possibly possess a power-source to rival those that ran alien societies. Or that they would have people capable of making it run weapons. No one expected the war to run for as long as it did. No one expected it to claim as many lives. No one were surprised when the USA won, but everyone were grieving the ones who were lost.

No one expected what came after either, but that was maybe more forgivable.

* * *

Year 1

They told Happy first. It was a surprisingly simple conversation. They explained the simple outlines of their plan and he said that that sounded good and what could he do to help. And they smiled and laughed and told him.

Rhodey was the second person they told. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to, and because they trusted him to hear them out. That still ended up being a far more difficult conversation.

He came to them because of a stroke of luck. Someone had noticed irregularities in the computer system, and since they did not seem to be doing any actual damage, they had asked the colonel before going higher up. Rhodey had recognized Tony's handiwork and had told the technician not to worry about it before he went to ask his old friend himself.

"Our computer guys noticed you in our systems, why are you in our systems?" He had just walked in. He never needed to knock anymore.

"Good to see you too Rhodey, how long's it been? Six months?"

"Tony!"

"No, really! It's been too long! I was almost starting to get worried."

"Don't avoid my questions, Tony, what are you doing in our systems?"

"It's nothing, sheesh, just left-overs from the last time I hacked you. You know how I am, it's nothing dangerous."

"Tony, I'm not stupid. I actually know a bit of coding, and I know JARVIS better than anyone other than you. Those were not left-overs. Those were a way for you to hijack the systems of the entire American military in two seconds flat. Why. Are. They. There?"

"One point three seconds. And god, Rhodey, calm your tits, sit down, I'll explain."

"Will you?" he asked, but he still sat down on the couch.

"Yes, we will" came Pepper's voice through the door, "but we need you to listen."

So they explained. They told him the plans they had and the ones they were still making. They told him how JARVIS was slowly but surely infecting every system on the planet and readying them for a takeover so quick and subtle that few would even notice. They told him how they were expanding the company. Buying other companies and businesses, making deals and connections, building good will. They told him how they were influencing politicians. They told him how they were surprisingly effective at fighting poverty, at a small scale for now. And they told him of the operations they were planning for the future. They told him how, with her extremis and his transhumanism, they would probably live long enough even for the slowest of their plans.

And he interrupted, and he yelled, and he refused to believe them. He denied their sanity. He almost cried when he realized their sincerity. He called them crazy and insane, and he threatened with calling everyone from the media to the president, but he listened. He listened, and when they were finished he did not call the media, or the president, or even the higher-ups he really should tell about the threat to their computer systems. He did not try to stop them, but he did not immediately accept what they were planning. He did accept a whiskey on the rocks. Then he went home to think things through. Two weeks later, JARVIS received a short message from Colonel Rhodes' personal computer.

"I'm in"

* * *

Year 3

The internet plus extra already belonged to them, though it did nearly exactly the same as before, by the time they told their third person. Bruce Banner was visiting the couple as a break from his home and relationship with a certain Betty Ross. This happened often enough because Bruce worked at Stark Industries, and therefore easily kept in contact with the couple, because Bruce was one of their most trusted friends and because Bruce and Betty had gotten used to living long periods of time away from each other, though neither would ever admit to finding any comfort in the distance between them. That was also a big part of why they had never gotten married.

The three of them, Bruce, Tony and Pepper, were sitting around the dinner table together when Bruce dropped the bombshell.

"So I've noticed a few changes in the company and in JARVIS' protocols in the last few years."

"Mhm?" Tony did not look up from the news on his tablet, but Pepper silently felt slightly alarmed.

"Are you guys planning on world domination?"

This made him look up. The couple just stared for a second, but Bruce looked back with a small, friendly smile and a mildly interested look in his eyes that hid nothing more serious. Bruce was never really scared of anything.

"Yep." Tony answered in an easy voice that hid a lot of more serious thoughts.

"Are these plans of yours going to mess up my research?"

"If we do it right, neither you nor Betty should even notice anything. Want to help out?"

"I'll be there if you need me, but only if it's really important. I've got better things to do. I would like to hear your plans though, they sound interesting and I think Betty would be intrigued."

And so they discussed strategies and PR for world domination over dinner and the tension left both Tony and Pepper as they realized Bruce and Betty both had better reasons for disliking their current system of power than themselves.

* * *

Year 5

It took a while longer before they got to tell the rest of the earth-based Avengers. Nearly five years into what had come to be called Operation Overlord by those in the know, Stark Industries owned an actual percentage of all American businesses, was the single largest company on the planet, had a hand in practically every large charity and environmental movement, having started most of them, and was generally hailed as one of the best things to ever happen to the world. It was around this time SHIELD caught on to what they were up to. So the couple were visited by an entourage of Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

"Hey, guys," was Tony's friendly greeting, "nice of you to drop by, I was just getting lonely." It was just himself and the trio in the room at the time. Pepper had business overseas.

"Drop it, Stark." Steve Rogers was not as friendly. "SHIELD is getting worried. Director Coulson thought it would be better to send someone you would trust. What are you two up to?"

"You'll have to narrow it down a little, cap. We're up to a lot of things. Drink?" Tony sat down on a couch, motioned to the visitors to join him. The spies exchanged glances and sat down, Steve remained standing. Natasha was the next person to speak.

"We're overlooking most of your more questionable actions. The hacking is annoying, but it's been written up as an acceptable risk for years, and as long as you don't mess around too much there really isn't any good reason to keep you from expanding the company. The charity work also goes a long way towards letting us ignore your foreign influence, but this thing with the president? That's too much."

"We know you've been corresponding with him over e-mail for a while now," Clint shot in "yet our computers can't seem to catch a single trace of anything. It's almost as if something is trying its best to keep us from realizing you even know each other's names."

"And it's not like he's the only world leader you've been influencing lately." Natasha again, setting up for Steve to finish the spiel.

"Isn't Pepper in France right now? Having dinner with the president and his wife? Are we wrong?"

"Guys, guys," Tony raised his hands in a defensive movement, "yes, okay. I've been talking to the president. As far as I remember, it's not illegal to send a friendly e-mail now and then, no matter how important the receiver is."

"Not illegal," Steve said, "not even really worrying. What is worrying is that you're working so hard to keep it hidden. What do you not want us to see?"

"It's not, it's just, sometimes the system gets in the way, okay? We want to help and then we can't, so we do a bit of lobbying. It's not all that dangerous."

"You don't like the system, so you just decide to change it, is that it?"

"Yep, pretty much."

"Then why keep it hidden?" Natasha looked honestly confused, though she kept it behind a practiced facade, "SHIELD is clean, we know that, we flushed it. It's not like you can't trust them to fight for the greater good?"

"It's not just SHIELD. There's just a handful of people who know…" Tony looked like he could hit himself. Steve decided to sit down.

"Just a bit of harmless lobbying, huh? 'Cause I'm starting to think there's something bigger going on. What're you planning, Tony?"

So he told them. He never used the words "world domination" or "Operation Overlord" with them, but none of them were stupid enough not to understand what the operation implied. Neither of them said a single word until Tony had finished his explanation.

"Wow." Clint didn't say much. Natasha didn't say a word. Steve looked a mixture of crestfallen and furious.

"What the hell, Stark? You can't just come in and undermine democracy!"

"I'm not."

"Yeah, you are!"

"Look, mostly we'll let governments continue as they are, we'll just interfere if there's something more important, or if someone's doing a terrible job."

"It's still undermining democracy. All you're talking about is glorified dictatorship. We need democracy, Stark."

"Of course we need democracy, because humans are fallible and power corrupts, but we'll have JARVIS to keep us in line. He doesn't forget things, he has the capacity to do everything at once, he won't make stupid mistakes and he can't be corrupted because he doesn't want anything for himself. He'll keep us in line."

"It's not like JARVIS is completely unbiased, you know?"

"And that's why we need people like you."

"What." Steve was completely thrown off his game. The two of them had stood up during their heated discussion, and now Steve was just standing and staring at Tony as he processed the last line the engineer had said. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that JARVIS might keep us in line when we're finished, but we want you on board for the ride. Basically we'll send you all our plans and schedules, and if you see something you think will hurt people, you call us. We'll discuss it, and if we find a reasonable chance you're right, we won't do it. You can bring along as many people as you want as long as you trust them, what d'you say?"

"I…"

"Steve, he does have a point."

"Natasha?"

The two assassins had never moved from their spot on the couch, discussing the situation in whispered voices, and had apparently reached a decision.

"Human nature can't be changed, but society can. This might be our best shot at changing the future for the better. It's a good plan, it could easily work, and the more people we have regulating it, the less chance there is something goes horribly wrong. How many people are in the know?" The last question was directed at Tony.

"Me, Pepper, Happy, Bruce and Betty, and Rhodey."

"Rhodes? You already have the military?" Steve was seriously off his game now.

"No, not yet, but we own their computers."

"God…"

Clint spoke up to the whispered exclamation.

"Natasha and I are in. It's up to you whether you like it or not, but I think it's your best bet. Probably can't stop it now anyway."

A little more back and forth and Steve reluctantly agreed to work as a control for the master plan, on the promise that if he, or any of his friends, disagreed too much with the operation he would never forgive them. Natasha and Clint stayed behind a little longer to receive instructions and details on their part of the silent revolution.

* * *

Year 10

SHIELD had joined in on the plan relatively quickly after Natasha got on the case. Government and military fell unnoticed under their command just a year and a half later. Deals were made between countries, friendly relations strengthened. A worldwide will for conflict solving flared and burned, without showing signs of burning out. In year ten of Operation Overlord the group of people in the know, now grown to nearly twenty five, were gathered in the Potts-Stark residence. Celebrating, among other things, two consecutive years of not a single war. Betty was the one to raise the first toast.

"To successfully decreasing world poverty by five percent and rising."

Steve, "to decreasing corruption by more."

Coulson, "to defusing the conflict in Catalonia."

Thor, "to the continuation of good will between our kingdoms."

Thor had agreed to the plan before he had even heard two lines of it. This was based on the fact that he trusted his friends with anything, and that his own planet had been under dictatorial rule for millennia. He might have disagreed if Jane had, but Pepper had a feeling that as long as the stars stayed in the same place, she couldn't care less who was in charge.

"To Pepper Potts and Tony Stark," said President Ellanor Owens, "for making the impossible possible."

"One thing I've wanted to ask for a while, though?" Rhodey said, after all the toasts were over and done with, "You guys are two people, right, but it'd be kinda stupid to give the Overlord title to more than one person, so who gets it?"

"Pepper does."

"What? You can't just put this all on me!"

"Oh, you think I could handle it?"

"Ha ha, no, not really."

"Ouch."

"You said it!"

"Still, that hurts, coming from you."

* * *

Year 20

After a while, people started to realize what was happening. Outside of conspiracy websites, who had deduced the entire plan years before SHIELD, but who also said the illuminati, lizard people, or Martians were in charge, and that Stark Industries was simultaneously _not_ Stark Industries, already in charge of the world and allied with Google. Also, Tony Stark was a visitor from the future, an evil cyborg, sleeping with every known human/non-human to ever exist, and a robot.

Most people accepted the truth as a price for the peace and progress made over the last decade. Those who did not want to accept it were not sure who to turn to, nor could they find anything specific and negative to complain about other than power-accumulation. With how well liked Stark and Potts had become, few were willing to listen.

* * *

Year 50

The world was practically theirs. The Overlord and her husband had taken the world slowly and peacefully, giving no one reason for anything more than token riots. Riots which were often defused by a personal meeting with a representative.

"We are terribly sorry for making you feel like this has been your only choice. What can we do to help you?"

"We want our government!"

"You already have it. As a matter of fact, after we got rid of most of the corruption, the government is more yours than ever."

"But you guys are still in charge."

"Aside from a bit of conflict solving, reducing the corruption and a few drastic carbon emission measures we've hardly touched your country, and we won't if we don't have to."

"Still, those CO2 things are really annoying."

"We understand that it is an inconvenience for you and the people of your country, but though we are working on bettering public transportation, these things take time. Time we don't have. I am sorry if this gets in the way of your Monday morning routine, but we have to think of the fate of the world first, don't you agree?"

"The fate of the world?"

"Drastic changes in the environment are dangerous for everyone. We hope that you and those you represent carry enough humanity to sacrifice small conveniences for the lives of millions of people?"

"I, uh, that's not really the problem…"

"Then what is?"

"Um… I'm sorry…"

"Don't worry about it. And if you or anyone else have any more problems, don't hesitate to speak up. We are here for your sake."

No riots ever needed to get violent. Fewer and fewer people complained, and those who did were often content with how their problem was handled. Things got better.

* * *

Year 90

Most people who were still alive had been born right before or during the rule of the overlord. Children had never known anything different but for that they learned in school and from nostalgic grandparents. Tony and Pepper stood together in an old interior-magazine living room and knew that the war that had once ravaged their country would never, ever happen again.


End file.
